El Chapo's fascination with witch doctors and accusations of pedophilia with star witness against him detailed in newly unsealed court papers

By Kate Demoney

New York Daily News|

Mar 15, 2019 | 1:40 PM

In this Jan. 8, 2016 file photo, a handcuffed Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman is made to face the press as he is escorted to a helicopter by Mexican soldiers and marines at a federal hangar in Mexico City. (Eduardo Verdugo / AP)

Federal prosecutors were desperate to stop Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzmán’s right-hand man from testifying about a fascination with witch doctors and times he allegedly spent raping young girls with the Mexican druglord, newly unsealed court documents reveal.

Guzmán’s attorneys were forbidden to question star witness Alex Cifuentes about the children El Chapo called “vitamins”, because he believed having sex with them gave him “life,” his interest in the Illuminati, witch and an impending apocalypse, court records released Thursday show.

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"Testimony about these sexual activities is not relevant to any fact of consequence in this action," prosecutors argued in a motion filed in October. “It is irrelevant and poses the potential for testimony about an additional highly inflammatory issue.”

Defense attorneys hoped to discredit Cifuentes with questions about his interest in pedophilia, secret societies and extraterrestrial life theories, court records show.

But Brooklyn federal prosecutors argued Cifuentes was not crazy and that such questions would distract from his evidence that “El Chapo” ordered hits and bribed politicians as head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“There is no evidence that [Cifuentes] has suffered from any form of psychiatric illness,” the motion reads. “Famed scientists, such as astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, have indicated that they believe it is likely that there is life on other planets.”

The druglord, whose full name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera, was convicted of international drug trafficking, federal murder conspiracy and other related charges on Feb. 12, for which he faces life in prison.

After the verdict,a juror told VICE News the panel used social media and read media reports of the trial while it was ongoing, including stories about evidence that was not admissible or presented in court.

El Chapo is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where he has been held in solitary confinement since his extradition to the U.S. in January 2017. The cocaine kingpin masterminded two daring escapes from Mexican prisons — once while hiding in a laundry cart pushed by a corrupt guard; the other by fleeing though a mile-long tunnel leading from the shower in his cell.

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His sentencing date is set for June 25. He will likely be placed at Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo., a “supermax” prison commonly known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies.